A crimson stream flowed from your head like a broken tap. I looked down at my hands, particles of skin beneath the nails. My palms trembled. I held them open to the sky in prayer—except it wasn’t a prayer, because I did not fear God.

⎯

I never expected how easy it would be to kill a person. It’s strange, isn’t it, that someone can be so alive one moment and vanish the next, as if they never even happened. I could handle her stillness, the rigor mortis, even that cold, vacant expression, but the thought of Gwen leaving of her own volition was a knife to my chest. Weeks after her death, I didn’t recognize myself. The hollows of my face were dark and skeletal; a postmortem bruise. I couldn’t sleep and needed perpetual noise: the chatter of talk radio or heavy metal crackling through blown-out headphones. Every waking, wordless moment I smothered with sound. It was the forgotten relics—a crescent stain from her last cup of tea, the spray-tan-tinged towels, wrinkled pajamas on the hallway floor—and above all, that cadaverous silence. These were the things that reminded me she was truly gone. I made arrangements at a seedy motel nearby, so I wouldn’t have to think about her so much.

 

The interrogation unfolded in a dim, airless chamber. I was struck by the starkness of the blank walls, the folding chairs, and The Detective’s stiff khaki uniform. It was devoid of warmth; tomb-like. Down here, it seemed we were not ordinary people, but actors in some bleak and nightmarish play. He spoke with a languid, saccharine drawl; slow and decidedly southern. At first, he laid on the charm, pretending we were long-lost fraternity brothers or something to that effect. But then, his insinuations crept in—a third, uninvited visitor—and I realized his two-facedness. I wasn’t the innocent witness he made me out to be, but an oddity, a specimen in his petri dish of provocations. Though I answered carefully, each question chipped away at my composure. I blotted my forehead with the back of my hand. It came away dripping with sweat.

 

When the Detective asked if I could empty my pockets, I obliged and laid each item out on the steel table: cell phone, wallet, some crumpled receipts, and finally, a Polaroid photo of Gwen. I had captured it—the last image taken of her alive—on an old Onestep camera in the kitchen of our trailer. She’s hunched over the stove, in the mid-flip of a perfectly golden, round pancake. Her expression is bright to match; she’s rosy-cheeked, vibrant, and innervated, just how I prefer to remember her. 

 

In the moment my fingers grazed the faded surface of the photo, a sudden electrified current surged through me, diffusing into the room with an ephemeral ripple. The tremor was so severe that I white-knuckled the sides of my chair to stay upright. In the commotion, the thing was swept to the floor. Everything returned to its ordinary stillness. 

 

My eyes met with the Detective’s. His jaw had gone slack and his eyes rotated like pinwheels. With a flat, lifeless tone he told me I was free to go. I couldn’t fathom what came over him, or what caused him to end the interview so abruptly, but I took the opportunity and gathered my things to leave. As I stood up, I glanced at the clock on the wall behind him. It read three on the dot, though I was certain the last time I checked, it had been a quarter to four. This forty-five minute discrepancy, in which time seemed to move backwards, had rewritten the course of the interview. I was mysteriously freed of suspicion.

 

After mulling it over, I realized the Detective’s quiet resignation had occurred in the exact moment I touched that photo of Gwen. I theorized that her timeworn objects contained remnants of her, and that was the reason for his forgetting. I tested my theory on other objects of hers: a blue beaded coinpurse, a ceramic figurine of an angel praying, and a silver heart-shaped pendant. Each proved a similar effect. I discovered a newfound hopefulness, just thinking about all the things that could be undone. With these powers, I could theoretically destroy any investigative links between myself and Gwen’s murder. Yet, as much as I tried, I couldn’t escape my own painful recollections.

⎯

The air vibrated with the cicadas’ song. We were drinking Miller Lights on the patio—or maybe, I drank Miller Lights while you just watched. The Neighbor stopped by and you went over to see him. Etched into the backs of your thighs were the red impressions of the plastic lawn chair. You spun an earring between two fingers, which is what really got to me—or maybe, how you kept glancing over, just to see if I was in earshot. Whatever you did that night, it sent me into a rage.

⎯

As the weeks wore on, I stopped hearing about Gwen entirely. Her friends, her family, the news, and even the phony Detective went radio silent. In regards to the investigation, I considered myself in the clear. The changing seasons, marked by the wilting May marigolds and the June splitting of parched soil, carried with them one unexpected complication: Gwen’s apparition began to materialize in the world around me. I saw her in line at the Piggly Wiggly, in the audience of an old Price is Right rerun, even in the garish floral wallpaper at the dentist’s office. Her presence solidified on the day I went back to the trailer to dispose of her things. The last traces of her, besides a few bits and bobs, were stuffed into plastic trash bags and abandoned to the curb. They looked rather morose, the bulging, ugly things sitting there side-by-side. 

 

Later that day, and much too soon to be coincidental, I saw Gwen outside our old high school. I was leaving the corner store, a pack of cigarettes in hand when I saw her stepping off the bus. She was shorter than usual and her hair much longer; the spitting image of Gwen in her teenage years. If it weren’t for the eighties chevron backpack slung over one shoulder, I might not have recognized her. Her blonde curls were sandwiched between furry earmuffs, and

bounced prettily as she walked. She stopped dead in her tracks, turned and shot me a stormy look from across the street. I retreated back into the safety of the liquor store and watched her through the window, until a moment later when she pivoted and disappeared robotically down the sidewalk. My life had metamorphosed, seemingly overnight into an endless game of hide-and-seek, wherein my ghostly dead girlfriend was the interminable target. Everywhere I went, I was terrified she’d be there, waiting.

 

I left work early one afternoon on account of a splitting migraine no dose of Tylenol would touch. When I got back to my room, I stumbled into the shower and let the water flow over me as cold as it would go. While shaving in the reflection of the little mirror on the wall, I struck it with my elbow and sent it crashing down. The reverberation was explosive, like a firecracker or a gunshot. Glittering fragments were strewn across the wet tiles.

 

I bent carefully to gather the pieces in one hand and unwittingly glanced into the biggest shard. What I saw next sent an insectile ripple down my spine. I gasped. It wasn’t my own face peering back from the tiny reflection, but Gwen’s. She had the same cerulean orbs for eyes, the lichenous scar branching from the left brow, and that downy moonwash skin. I made a naked dash and for the rest of the day avoided the bathroom entirely.

 

Later on, I found myself poring over a newspaper at Peggy Sue’s Diner, my usual neighborhood haunt. The title of the article read: “Where Are You, Gwen? Case of Missing Nevada Woman Reopened.” I scanned over the paragraphs several times, shaking my head in disbelief. It mentioned the FBI’s recruitment in the search for Gwen’s body, and suggested vaguely having multiple leads. I had been so sure to lock each door into the investigation, then throw away the keys, but there it was again in the wrathful bold letters of a newspaper headline. Apparently, a person’s memories could not stay buried for long. 

​

I nearly jumped from the sudden appearance of The Waitress, for in the fifteen minutes it took for her to prepare my food, she had completely transformed. Her smile was garishly overdrawn in red lipstick, and her parted lips revealed a mouthful of bestial white teeth—at least fifty crowded into each row. She didn’t blink and her eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets. 

 

“Any pie today?” she said. Her voice was tinny, and far too upbeat for comfort.

​

I declined and unwrapped my bundle of silverware, only to find that each piece was crusted in brown remains. She brought over the rest of the dishes, at which point I observed a grayish tint to the scrambled eggs and speckles of mold on each pancake. Every last plate was cold to the touch. Strangest of all was when she poured my coffee and the liquid flowed backwards, from mug to pitcher as if in reverse. 

​

“Any pie today? Any pie today? Any pie today?” she chirped again.

​

I declined for a second time and she hobbled back toward the kitchen. I was so unsettled that I put a twenty dollar bill on the table and went to leave.

​

When I'd first entered the diner, it was surely a sweltering August evening; markedly one of the hottest days of the year. But as soon as I opened the front door only half an hour later, the dry heat had vanished. I was hit with a freezing gust of wind and at my feet, a thick layer of crystalline snow. The sheer magnitude of white powder was blinding and extended as far as the eye could see. I ran the whole distance to the motel, my exposed ankles frostbitten by the time I got back. My body exhausted and shivering, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

 ⎯

Tears rolled down your petal-soft cheeks. Your lips were swollen and chasmically split down the middle. Part of me wanted to go back—back to a time when you were perfect, but the other part wanted to see you tremble. I shook you. I begged you to cough up whatever happened between you and The Neighbor. I gave you one chance, Gwen—one last chance to tell me everything.

 ⎯

When I awoke, the world outside my window was a dark and lifeless void. I tried to stand, but found myself feverish and lacking my usual momentum. When I peeled back the damp, twisted bedsheets, I realized that both of my legs were missing. Each one had been replaced by a smooth, round nub that extended a few inches past the hipbones before tapering off unnaturally. I felt no pain, in fact I was strangely unbothered, as if the conventions of what a body should be had become entirely irrelevant.

 

Desperate for something to drink, I lowered myself from the bed, put on my street clothes, and slithered out the door, using my forearms to inch toward the elevator. Once again, the weather had shifted, this time from a blistering snowstorm to something like a rainy spring evening. The whole front of my shirt and trailing legs of my sweatpants were quickly soaked with brackish rainwater. 

 

Reaching the buttons on the vending machine from ground level was yet another test of my endurance. Mercifully, there was a cigarette-pocked chair nearby, and I dragged it closer before hoisting myself onto its seat. With the rest of my pocket change, I bought two cans of Coke and drank them both in succession. Feeling satisfied, I crept back to my room, this time army-crawling up the stairs. By driving forward the weight of my upper body, I found I could balance on my stumps, if only for a moment. When I swiped my card through the key reader, though, I was met with the blinking red indicator light. I cursed and wiggled the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. All of a sudden, the door was opened by someone on the other side. It was an

elderly man with a white halo of fuzz around his head. Besides a pair of boxers, he was naked and appeared less like a grown man than a paunchy, oversized toddler. 

 

“Well, who the fuck are you?” he bellowed, spit flying with every consonant. He peered down at me disgustedly—down at the bizarre, dismembered creature on the landing. The room behind him blared with the sound of people arguing on TV.

​

“This is my room. See? 2-2-2!” I held up the small paper envelope where I kept the keycard. The concierge had scribbled my room number on it in thick, black sharpie.

​

“Dumbass. That’s 1-1-1,” he said, then slammed the door in my face. I scratched my head, then looked at it again and frowned. He was right. The numbers clearly read ‘1-1-1.’ How could that be? I thought. How could I have confused my room for being on the second floor, and not the first?

⎯

I picked up the hammer and swung. It was a clean strike. A straight shot into your occipital bone. You hit the floor. Thus began the silence. Never before had I seen you so still; never heard you so quiet—a crumpled ragdoll splayed out on the rug.

⎯

The fluorescent lights flickered. A sudden, nameless seed of intuition took hold. I feared that another rift in the world’s order had been set into motion. My thoughts splintered. Flashes seized my vision. Gwen’s face—the color draining from it at ten times speed. The Waitress’s Cheshire grin. Men in plastic suits, shoveling dirt under a floodlamp. Parts of me fell away. First, a shorn left ear, then a mottled lung. Two detached radial bones. My mind became a whiplash of paper backdrops. I flipped through each one, hoping the next might be my reality, but nothing was familiar. 

​

Just as I was about to give up, something snagged—maybe an ephemeral tripwire or tether between my soul and the physical realm. Although inexplicably paralyzed, I found myself rooted in a holy moment of coherence on the motel carpet. There was a faint pst-pst coming from the picture of Gwen that lay beside me. It was just out of reach, and I used the last of my strength to finagle it between two fingers. Her smile had turned sinister, the corners flicked up devilishly. The whites of her eyes were webbed with angry vessels. For the first time in months, I heard her voice ring out. She spoke from beyond the silver halide of the Polaroid, its gauzy surface the only separation between us.

 

“You thought you could just forget me?” she said. “Didn’t you?” Her tone was different too; deeper and abrasive. “You blamed me for everything, but it was you. It was always you. Look how pathetic you are.” 

​

Gwen lunged, tearing through the translucent membrane of the photo. Pieces of her emerged—a head, two shoulders, a frenzy of limbs—popping and expanding like detonated airbags. The frame warped as she manoeuvred her body through it. In seconds, she had grown from Polaroid proportions to fully human. She flopped onto the floor like a fish out of water, then scrambled to her feet. Her voice closed in from above. Our faces were inches apart, her eyes black and tempestuous.

 

“Now it’s me who gets to decide.”

 

With three hearty thrusts, I was catapulted through the margins of the photo. I crash-landed upright, but entirely frozen in place. The sudden stillness made my stomach churn. I let my gaze wander over the room. Constellations of cockroaches clung to the walls, and the counters were piled with empty beer cans. I had fully departed from my own world into a snapshot version of our trailer. If only I could go back—if only I could unlearn the malleability of time. Now, it was me in Gwen’s place; it was me holding the cast iron that would not be set down. Its handle glowed like molten lava, searing painfully through the skin of my palm. 

 

Floating a few paces away was the picture frame, disembodied and in the exact position I stood with the camera when I first took that picture of Gwen. Now, I could see her clearly through it, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my motel room and rifling hungrily through my wallet. She pulled out a thick wad of cash, everything left to my name, and stuffed it into her pants pocket. Then, she walked away, each click-clack of her shoes penetrating an everlasting hole in my heart. It was something worse than death. She left the door just ajar; a mere sliver of the world in which I no longer belonged. She did not look back. Not even once.